Online Stock Trading

I was on Technorati the other day and I noticed that Dennis Goedegebuure at the Moneydiet blog mentioned my blog in a post titled Investing like Warren Buffett. At first I have to admit that I was flattered to have received unanticipated attention. I have thanked him for taking the time to mention my work by adding a link to his blog in my blogroll (you can find the link about half way down on the sidebar).

But then I read his post. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a searing indictment or anything, and he does after all seem to “feel good” about Warren Buffett like I do, but he doesn’t exactly cut me very much slack either.

After writing a little about how rich people become rich and then about Warren Buffett’s early investment days, he says, “People like Warren Buffet don’t come along that often, and the comparison that Dereck is trying to make on his blog and in his investment strategy is a risky one.” On the first point, I must totally agree. People like Warren Buffett don’t come along that often. They come along so infrequently in fact that only one has come along, ever. On the second point, that the comparison I am trying to make on my blog and in my investment strategy is a risky one, I simply must complain.

So here’s my complaint: Risky how? Semantics aside, (initially I was frustrated by some of his grammatical errors and ambiguous language but after reading his entire blog myself I have learned that he is actually from Europe—so, ahem, I’m cutting him some slack), what risk is there in making a comparison? That my comparison might be wrong? But I’m not really comparing anything on my blog so he must mean, generally, that outperforming Warren Buffet is a risky aspiration. But the only risk in that aspiration is failure. Oh great so he’s warning me.

But wait a minute, putting it like that makes it sound like he’s protecting me and my readers from the pain of disappointment. If my aspirations to make Warren Buffet sized gains in Dereck sized timelines runs the risk of disappointment, then gosh, it turns out that he’s exactly right. But seriously, do you think I or anyone would be disappointed were we even to merely get the same gains as Warren Buffett in the same time as Warren Buffett? Hell no! That would be the greatest achievement of a lifetime. What about half the gains? Again, like hell I would be disappointed.

So what’s really bugging me about that post? It turns out that him telling me that my aspirations are risky feels a lot like some inner-city basketball coach who, upon having heard that one of his players wants to be better than Michael Jordan, tells the player, “Sorry son, you better watch out, those are pretty lofty goals.” Pop.

Why would a coach do something like that? Wouldn’t someone in a position like that rather say, “Ok son, let’s do it—we’ve got some work to do, but let’s do it”? There are only two situations I can think of where a coach might say something like that: 1) They like Michael Jordan so much, in other words they have a vested interest in Michael Jordan staying #1, in other words they don’t want their hero replaced by someone else—i.e., they don’t want to have been wrong about having let Michael Jordan become their hero, or 2) They themselves want so much to be as good as Michael Jordan that they don’t want anyone to beat them to it.

Dennis doesn’t want me to spoil his fun. That’s ok. I’m going to do everything in my power to spoil it anyways. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this so early (I’m no braggart) but after only sixty-something days, I am in fact, tracking gains slightly more than twice as fast as Warren Buffett.

I want to thank you Dennis for reading my blog and responding to it. I now regularly read your blog and look forward to continuing to do so.